


Leading Me On

by my_mad_fatuation



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-03-05
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7157543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rae left Finn, without any explanation, but he seems to think there might still be something between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leading Me On

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by the song “Please Don’t Please Me” by The Danger Bees.

It’s been nearly a month since Rae and I split up. Well, I say we split up, but really she dumped me. She just showed up at my house one day and told me it was over. She didn’t explain why. She just said she couldn’t do it anymore.

“Do what?” I had asked.

“Any of it,” she said, looking down at her shoes.

I reached out for her arm. “Any of what, Rae?”

She pulled it back. “We can still be friends, yeah?”

I watched in disbelief as she walked away.

Since then I’ve tried to do my best to be a good friend to her. I make myself available to her whenever she needs something. But she runs so hot and cold on me. Sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a wall.

“I hate all this pre-show crap, don’t you?” I say to her. I had convinced the gang to go see a film and finagled my way into sitting next to her at the cinema.

She doesn’t respond.

“And the trailers—they never make you want to watch the film they’re promoting, do they?”

She shrugs her shoulders, staring ahead at the screen.

“I don’t even understand why they choose to show some of ones that they do,” I continue. “They’re usually nothing like the film I actually came to watch, y’know?”

She glances at me momentarily.

“Even when it’s a film that I would go see, I didn’t pay to watch twenty minutes of previews.”

Still nothing. I don’t know how to handle the silence between us.

“I wonder—“

“Finn,” she cuts in. “You talk way too much. Shut up for five minutes, alright?”

I shrink back in my seat and mutter a “sorry.” I sit silently, looking over at her occasionally.

“Stop staring at me, it freaks me out,” she says. She flashes a teasing smile at me and elbows me in the arm.

“I’m not staring at ya,” I say with a laugh, giving her a nudge back.

Yeah, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a wall. But sometimes it feels like there’s still something more there.

Like when she lies on my bed, staring up at the ceiling while I play records for her.

“I like this one,” she says, her hands folded on her stomach.

I take a seat on the bed and lie down next to her. “Me too.”

“Of course you like it,” she retorts. She turns her head to face me and for a second I wonder if she’s thinking about kissing me. “You bought it.”

I smile tightly.

She looks back up at the ceiling and closes her eyes. I’m surprised when she rests her hand palm-up on my stomach.

I look over at her again and her eyes are still closed, so I tentatively hold onto her hand with mine, interlacing our fingers. She squeezes back.

“I’ve missed you,” she says quietly.

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

“And whose fault is that?” I reply, not meaning to sound so bitter.

She lets go of my hand and sits up. I curse silently to myself before sitting up as well.

“Look, it’s not that I don’t—I still like you, Finn,” she says, wringing her hands.

I reach my hand towards hers.

“But,” she adds, “that’s not really enough, is it?”

So, sometimes it feels like there’s something still there. But sometimes it feels like she just wants me to think there is to keep me around.

Like when she sits beside me at the pub while we wait for the others to join us.

“Whatcha drinkin’?” she asks, leaning on the table with her elbow.

“Fosters,” I say quietly.

“Can I have a sip?”

“What? Get your own.”

“I haven’t got any money on me.”

I fumble around in my pocket for some change.

“I don’t want your money,” she laughs. “I just want a sip.”

“Fine.” I slide the pint over to her and watch as she lifts the glass to her lips. I look away quickly before she thinks I’m staring again.

She slides the glass back over to me and I wipe down the rim with my sleeve.

“If you’re worried about us sharing germs, Finn, I think it’s too late,” she says. She makes a kissing face at me.

“It’s not like we’re doing that anymore,” I say before I can stop myself.

“So because of that we can’t share a drink?”

“You’re the one who doesn’t want me; I shouldn’t have to share anything with you.”

She looks down at the table. “I do still want you…”

“Don’t say that.” I take a big gulp of my drink. “Don’t say that you still want me—you’re just trying to check if I still have feelings for you so you can feel good about yourself, and I’m not gonna do that for ya.”

“Finn, I’m sorry, I didn’t—“

I push my pint towards her and stand up. “Here, you can have the rest.”

“The others are going to be here any minute,” she says, grabbing the hem of my shirt.

“I can’t be around you anymore.” I tug my shirt free and walk out.

I take a walk through the park to clear my head. I probably shouldn’t have spoken to her like that, but I am just so sick of feeling like she’s manipulating me; like she’s leading me on to prove that she can, or something.

I know, I know, that doesn’t really sound like Rae, does it?

Maybe she’s not really doing what I think she’s doing. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe she’s not leading me on at all, and I’m just projecting…

It’s dark by the time I finally get home, so I barely see her there, sitting on the front steps.

“Rae?” I say, nearly tripping over her feet.

“Sorry,” she says, standing up. “I just wanted to talk to ya.”

I sigh. “Come inside, it’s cold.”

“Thanks.”

My dad isn’t home yet, so we sit down in the living room.

“I wanted to apologize—“

“No, I’m sorry,” I interrupt. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.”

“I shouldn’t have said that I still wanted ya.” She crosses her ankles. “Except that it’s true, Finn, I do.”

“Then why did you break up with me?”

“It’s complicated—“

“It’s not complicated! Either you want me or you don’t.”

“Sometimes we can’t have what we want,” she says without looking at me.

“Well, what’s stoppin’ ya, then?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

I fold my arms. “Try me.”

She looks up at the ceiling and I can tell she’s trying not to cry. I feel bad for being so short with her. “We’re a joke,” she says. “People laugh when they see us together. They can’t understand it. I can’t understand it.”

“Can’t understand what?”

“Us! How can you possibly like me?”

“I already told ya, I just do!”

“I don’t get it…”

“What don’t you get?” I ask, leaning forward to try and look her in the eye. She doesn’t meet my gaze, though. “You’re clever and funny and beautiful and tough and—“

“I don’t think I’m any of those things.”

“Well y’are. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean other people can’t. It doesn’t mean I can’t.”

She just shakes her head so I hold onto her hand with mine. I start rubbing it with my thumb because it’s cold.

“As far as I see it, if you want to be with me and I want to be with you, then fuck everyone else,” I say. “We can make our own rules.”

“Finn, I really want to, I do,” she begins. “But—“

“No buts. Just yes or no.” I smile at her. “Quit being a dickhead.”

I can see a hint of a smile on her face as well. “You’re the dickhead.”

I bite my lip to keep from grinning. “C’m’ere,” I say, pulling her into a hug. I bury my face in her neck and I can smell her hair. I’ve missed that scent.

“Alright,” she says.

I draw my head back to look at her. “Alright, what?”

“Alright, yes. I suppose we can try again.”

I kiss her before she has the chance to say anything else and ruin it.

“Finn,” she tries to say, but I’m sucking on her lip, so it sounds more like “Fibb.”

“Mm?”

“You’re the dickhead.”


End file.
